“That which cannot go on forever, won’t”.
“We can’t pay with what we don’t have”.
I don’t remember who said the first line but I remember who said the second.
Me.
To my wife. After spinal cord cancer came a callin’.
There were things that we had to (and still) do without:
- Physical therapy, without which I’ll be stuck in this chair
- An accessible car
- We don’t have cable
- We don’t have I-Anythings
- We don’t take vacations
Growing up, I knew that there were a few core things that I, as a responsible adult, would need to have.
- I would need a robust savings account.
- I would need health insurance.
- I would need a long term disability plan.
By the time I was twenty four, I began building my savings in earnest and took advantage of employer matched savings contributions.
In the nearly twenty years since I’ve always had health insurance. At one point selling a car to ensure coverage.
I couldn’t afford long term disability, after all, 15% of my income was going to Social Security. That would have to be my long term disability plan.
Well what do you know? Everything that I thought I needed to cover for myself I did. The one thing that I didn’t was the long term disability, because I was forced to first pay into Social Security.
Ever heard of moral hazard? You just did.
But I digress.
The point I’m making is that I expected to do certain things for myself without leaning on government. There are things that we do without because we simply cannot afford them at the moment. Will we in the future? Absolutely!
The reason that I did these things for myself was that it didn’t occur to me that my problems were the responsibility of someone else.
We argue that we need more social services. I argue that we don’t. In fact I’d argue that our social safety net is an incredibly robust, albeit labyrinthian, system that if one were to dedicate the time, could live very well, with all amenities covered, and never work another day. Talk about moral hazard!
I’d also argue that “safety net” is the wrong term. We should be calling it a “safety web” because once you get in, it’s incredibly difficult to get out.
This safety web is expensive to administer and inefficient in its delivery. We cannot continue to pay for it. We can’t fund it through current taxes. We cannot raise enough in new taxes. We are currently paying for it through borrowing.
You know what happens when you have to consistently borrow money to pay the bills right?
“That which cannot go on forever, won’t”.
What is going to happen to the people stuck in the web when it collapses?